Table of Contents

Part I. Foundations

1 The Womanization of Rhetoric

Sally Miller Gearhart

2 Proposal for a Feminist Rhetoric

Sonja K. Foss and Cindy L. Griffin

3 Beyond Persuasion: A Proposal for an Invitational Rhetoric

Sonja K. Foss and Cindy L. Griffin

4 Beyond Traditional Conceptualizations of Rhetoric: Invitational Rhetoric and a Move toward Civility

Jennifer E. Bone, Cindy L. Griffin, and T. M. Linda Scholz

5 The Metatheoretical Foundations of Invitational Rhetoric: Axiological, Epistemological, and Ontological Explorations

Sonja K. Foss and Cindy L. Griffin

Part II. Extensions

6 Fusing Horizons: Standpoint Hermeneutics and Invitational Rhetoric

Kathleen J. Ryan and Elizabeth J. Natalle

7 Telling the Story, Hearing the Story: Narrative Co-Construction and Crisis Research

Karen Taylor, Rita Durant, and David Boje

8 Planting Seeds of Change: Ella Baker’s Radical Rhetoric

Marilyn DeLaure Bordwell

9 Rhetorics of Invitation and Refusal in Terry Tempest Williams’s The Open Space of Democracy

Jill Swiencicki

10 Invention for the Invitational Rhetor: Allen Ginsberg’s “Wichita Vortex Sutra”

Stephen M. Llano

11 Challenges to the Enactment of Invitational Rhetoric in the Age of Mobile Communication Technologies

Sonja K. Foss and Jeanine Warisse Turner

Part III. Applications

12 Love as a Strategy for Community and Social Justice Organizing: Invitational Rhetoric in Murfreesboro Loves

Roberta Chevrette and Joshua Hendricks

13 Practicing Invitational Rhetoric: East Central Ministries’ Approach to Community Development

Sarah De Los Santos Upton

14 Discussions on Kneeling During the National Anthem: An Analysis of High School Football Players Employing Invitational Rhetoric

Kristen A. Hungerford

15 An Invitation to Rhetoric: A Generative Dialogue on Performance, Possibility, and Feminist Potentialities in Invitational Rhetoric

Bryant Keith Alexander and Michele Hammers

16 Understanding Affectively: Beyond the Hills as Cinematic Invitational Rhetoric

Alina Haliliuc

17 Participatory Graffiti as Invitational Rhetoric: The Case of O Machismo

Benjamin R. Bates

18 Invitational Rhetoric as a Springboard to Using Dialogue across the Curriculum

Patricia Hawk and Rachel Pokora

19 Creating an Invitational Classroom Environment: Lessons Lived and Learned

Donna Marie Nudd

20 Disrupting Disruption: Invitational Pedagogy as a Response to Student Resistance

A. Abby Knoblauch

21 An Invitation to Reason: The Process of Discovery Essay

Kathleen M. Hunzer

22 Considering the Alternative in Composition Pedagogy: Teaching Invitational Rhetoric with Lynda Barry’s What It Is

Susan Kirtley

Part IV. Expanding the Invitation

23 The Theory of Invitational Rhetoric: Anticipating Future Scholarship

Sonja K. Foss and Cindy L. Griffin

24 Compendium of Publications Related to Invitational Rhetoric

Sonja K. Foss, Cindy L. Griffin, and Andrew Gilmore

About the Author

Sonja Foss is Professor of Communication at the University of Denver. She is co-author of Inviting Transformation: Presentational Speaking for a Changing World, 3rd edition (Waveland Press, 2012), which presents an entirely new model of presentational speaking rooted in invitational rhetoric, Women Speak: The Eloquence of Women’s Lives (with Karen A. Foss) (Waveland Press, 1991) and Gender Stories: Negotiating Identity in a Binary World (with Karen A. Foss and Mary E. Domenico) (Waveland Press, 2013).



Cindy Griffin is Professor of Communication at Colorado State University. She is the author of Invitation to Public Speaking, 6th edition (Cengage, 2018) and Invitation to Human Communication, 2nd edition (Cengage, 2017). She is also the coauthor (with Karma Chavez) of Standing in the Intersection: Feminist Voices, Feminist Practices in Communication Studies (SUNY Press, 2012), which received the Outstanding Book Award of the Organization for the Study of Communication, Language, and Gender in 2012 and is completing a book on gender and communication, Beyond Gender Binaries: An Intersectional Orientation to Communication and Identities (SUNY Press)

Reviews

Foss (Univ. of Denver) and Griffin (Colorado State Univ.) are the principal developers of the invitational rhetoric paradigm. This publication marks the 25th anniversary of Foss and Griffin's original article on this theory ("Beyond Persuasion: A Proposal for an Invitational Rhetoric," Communication Monographs, 1995), making this extensive showcase of the scope and impact of their work quite fitting. Presented under three headings—"Foundations," "Extensions," "Applications"—essays cover the foundations of invitational rhetoric, offer extensions of the theory, and apply the concepts to a variety of artifacts. In a particularly interesting essay, Alina Haliliuc studies the 2012 Romanian film Beyond the Hills, arguing that the movie functions as an invitational rhetorical "offering" in that it provides a brave perspective about highly controversial issues. Foss and Griffin conclude by provoking inquiry into the growth of the theory by looking at ways in which invitational rhetoric can inform pedagogy, is affected by technology, can enact social change, and can inform research methods. No other books on this theory provide the breadth and expertise this one does. This is a must-have for scholars and an excellent supplemental text for the classroom. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Lower-division undergraduates through faculty.
*Choice*

A remarkable turn in the rhetorical tradition, the theory of invitational rhetoric invites us to reimagine rhetoric as a form of genuine dialogue. Inviting Understanding: A Portrait of Invitational Rhetoric is a great resource for anyone wanting to explore this provocative idea.
*Robert T. Craig, University of Colorado at Boulder*

Given the divisive world in which we currently live, any approach to discourse that privileges understanding and accepting the social other is to be commended. This volume adroitly combines previously published scholarship with new material that deepens the theoretical frame for the ‘invitation to understand’ as well as offers a broader array of work that illustrates the possibilities for engaging in discourse.
*Raymie E. McKerrow, Ohio University*

This book is both a comprehensive and expansive examination of previously and newly published works on one of the communication discipline’s most important theoretical contributions. Invitational rhetoric has certainly made its mark in the field, and this volume adds extensively to our understanding of invitational and feminist theories of communication and rhetoric.
*Stacey Sowards, University of Texas at Austin*

As an advocate for and practitioner of invitational rhetoric for decades, I am deeply indebted to Foss and Griffin’s work. Now comes this comprehensive new resource, Inviting Understanding: A Portrait of Invitational Rhetoric—and it could not appear at a more propitious time, as teachers everywhere are looking for ways to move beyond the fragmentation and division and attack culture we are living through.
*Andrea Lunsford, Stanford University*

How lucky are we to research, write, and speak during the time of Sonja K. Foss and Cindy L. Griffin, whose concept of invitational rhetoric continues to transform the long-established fields of rhetoric, communication, and composition studies. Ever since their landmark 1995 publication on this topic, my students and I have benefited from their brilliant insights; their generative scholarship; and their steady hope for a more equitable, productive rhetorical future.
*Cheryl Glenn, Pennsylvannia State University*

For the past quarter century, Foss and Griffin’s theory of invitational rhetoric has played an instrumental role in fostering dialogue regarding the strengths and limits of the dominant adversarial communication paradigm. As one who shares their commitment to this critical area of inquiry, I welcome publication of Inviting Understanding.
*Josina M. Makau, California State University, Monterey Bay*